A Future from the Past

by | Sep 16, 2023

The American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, houses the works of the ethnomusicologist Frances Theresa Densmore, including a collection of more than 2,500 American Indian songs she recorded between 1907 and 1941. Approximately 260 of Densmore’s cataloged...

Stories for Change

by | Sep 15, 2022

Death has been on my mind. Minding the end times reverberates at many scales—global, personal, physical, spiritual. Solstice pulled me out among the winter whispery grasses and low trees on my land. Science predicts the devastation of the two-needle piñon, the...

“An Electromagnetic Tenderness of Remembering”

by | Sep 15, 2022

This interview engages with how one folklorist’s interests in recording spoken sounds and memories of his grandmother opened a pathway to recording the memories and sounds of living descendants of traditional Appalachian balladry. Through the processes of engaging...

Engaging with Discomfort

by | Sep 15, 2022

Death is not just the end of life; death is also a complex and cultural phenomenon. As such, the shifting boundaries between life and death call for a reexamination of existing social norms and practices and the various educational resources surrounding death and...

Going on the Journey of Learning to Respect Our Elders

by | Sep 15, 2022

Growing up in the United States, in a predominantly white neighborhood and attending predominantly white schools, I experienced an identity crisis in my youth: I wanted to be Caucasian. I wanted to disconnect myself from my Chinese roots. I perceived all Chinese...